![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I am at my parents' house in supposedly sunny Santa Barbara. I am wearing shorts because I had intended to lounge about in the sun and read for a while, then get to work writing.
It is raining. Raining! Why???
I am now reading Catherine Storr's The If Game, a strange little children's book about a boy who slips into parallel worlds. His mother is gone and no one in the family will speak about her, ever, and even refuse to tell him whether she is dead or alive. One would expect the explanation to be a massive scandal or perhaps a murder, but from the evidence so far of the parallel worlds, it seems that in fact, she merely moved to Australia.
Storr is also the author of Thursday, a Tam Lin retelling, and the strange Marianne Dreams, which was adapted into a little-known but quite brilliant fantasy movie called Paperhouse, which I highly recommend. (Probably available on DVD.) A troubled little girl with an overactive imagination draws a little house with a boy in the window; the boy has no legs because she can't draw legs. Then a boy moves in next door, a boy who can't walk. There are gorgeous, spooky scenes taking place inside her drawings; reality and fantasy bleed into each other, and until the very end I had no idea where the story was going or even what genre it was.
Sherwood, I eagerly await reading Devilish.
It is raining. Raining! Why???
I am now reading Catherine Storr's The If Game, a strange little children's book about a boy who slips into parallel worlds. His mother is gone and no one in the family will speak about her, ever, and even refuse to tell him whether she is dead or alive. One would expect the explanation to be a massive scandal or perhaps a murder, but from the evidence so far of the parallel worlds, it seems that in fact, she merely moved to Australia.
Storr is also the author of Thursday, a Tam Lin retelling, and the strange Marianne Dreams, which was adapted into a little-known but quite brilliant fantasy movie called Paperhouse, which I highly recommend. (Probably available on DVD.) A troubled little girl with an overactive imagination draws a little house with a boy in the window; the boy has no legs because she can't draw legs. Then a boy moves in next door, a boy who can't walk. There are gorgeous, spooky scenes taking place inside her drawings; reality and fantasy bleed into each other, and until the very end I had no idea where the story was going or even what genre it was.
Sherwood, I eagerly await reading Devilish.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Rain is good; drought is bad.
From:
no subject
Devilish is a lot of fun, though my favorite Johnson has turned out to be The Bermudez Triangle.
From:
no subject
His mother is wosshername from Pamela Dean's The Secret Country trilogy, AICMFP? Be on the lookout for hedges and jewel-encrusted swords.
Thursday
Pamela Dean's Tam Lin remains my favorite retelling. I remember liking Thursday and also The Perilous Gard, but not nearly as much as TL. I forget which of T and TPG I liked more.
Marianne Dreams
When I found out Storr was the author of Thursday and also Marianne Dreams and that the latter was the basis for Paperhouse, it became one of the books I spent a lot of effort trying to track down. I think ABEBooks finally came through for me. (I think maybe she also wrote Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, which I enjoyed as a little kid and read to my younger brother.)